1. Scope of this Document

This document describes Bloomington campus policies relevant to the appointment classifications of Lecturer and Senior Lecturer, and to Clinical appointments, as these classifications are described in policies adopted by the Indiana University Board of Trustees on May 4, 2001.

2. Rationale for Lecturer and Clinical Appointments

Lecturer appointments may be appropriate in fields where particular teaching challenges have led to career paths in specialized pedagogy, basic skills instruction, language teaching, and so forth. Clinical appointments may be appropriate in fields where particular challenges in teaching and service in a clinical setting have led to specialized career paths. In cases where these career paths may entail research exclusively in support of classroom teaching and clinical work, academic professionals may benefit from positions that do not require career excellence in discipline-specific fundamental and applied research or the profile in teaching excellence associated with tenure on the basis of teaching, and units may benefit from the participation of colleagues whose full effort is devoted to the excellence of the teaching and service missions.

The academic mission of the campus must remain in the hands of tenured and tenure-probationary faculty, who are responsible for guiding and balancing both research and teaching missions, and whose appointments provide for the protection of academic freedom necessary for the full and free exercise of critical judgment. Hence, non-tenure-track Lecturer and Clinical appointments shall be used only when essential to the overall mission of the unit. Non-tenure-track Lecturer and Clinical appointments must be justified in a principled way in terms of a unit’s research, teaching, and service missions. Such justifications must indicate the educational impact of assigning specific courses or types of courses to non-tenure-track faculty, and the impact on the unit of allocating resources to appointments dedicated to teaching, rather than to the unit’s research mission. Such appointments should not be approved without review of written justification at the campus level. The appointment of Lecturers and Clinical faculty should not be seen as a long-term solution to financial imperatives faced by the campus or its units.

While the University's regulations governing Clinical and Lecturer appointments are similar, care should be taken to make appointments in the appropriate classification in order that the University and campus may have an accurate enumeration of the composition of the faculty. Lecturer is the appropriate appointment for those engaged primarily in classroom teaching. Clinical appointments shall only be made for positions that involve teaching and service in contexts that are characterized as clinical in established usage, typically involving small group or one on one supervision and guidance of students applying theoretical concepts in professional settings. Where the appropriateness of the Clinical designation is not clear from established usage, the Vice Provost for Faculty and Academic Affairs shall determine the appropriate appointment classification.

3. Duties of Lecturer and Clinical Appointments

Lecturer and Clinical appointees are to be evaluated chiefly on the basis of their contributions to the teaching mission. Research and service in support of teaching may also be components of the appointment and of evaluation. The contributions of Lecturers and Clinical appointees to the missions of their units may vary, but will usually involve student advising, curricular administration, and unit committee work at levels typical for unit faculty. The performance of Lecturers and Clinical appointees should be reviewed annually, in the same way as other faculty, and specific annual balance of responsibilities should be determined in an annual meeting with the chair or dean. Like tenured and tenure-probationary colleagues, lecturers and clinical faculty are campus appointees, who should have the opportunity, consistent with their primary unit responsibilities, to support the mission of the campus through volunteer service activity that should be recognized as a professional contribution to the university.

4. Proportion of Non-Tenure-Track Appointments

The faculty of each campus school and unit within a school shall specify the minimum percentage of its faculty appointments that must be assigned to tenured and tenure-probationary faculty appointments in order to sustain its research, teaching, and service missions. This figure should be calculated by dividing FTE of tenure and tenure-probationary faculty by total FTE for all teaching appointments. The specified minimum percentage must take into account the expectation that units will maintain a national profile in research or creative work, and be based on a clear identification of teaching functions best fulfilled by faculty engaged in discipline-specific fundamental and applied research, and those best fulfilled by clinical or pedagogical specialists. Units within schools shall report these figures to the dean of their school, and schools must report these figures to the Vice Provost for Faculty and Academic Affairs and the Agenda Committee of the Bloomington Faculty Council on an annual basis. Schools shall include with this annual report the percentage of school courses and the percentage of total student credit hours in school courses taught by Lecturers and Clinical appointees during the preceding year.

5. Contracts and Promotion for Lecturer and Clinical Appointments

Initial Lecturer and Clinical appointments should be at the level appropriate to the experience and accomplishments of the individual and approved by the faculty of the unit. Standards and procedures for contracts during the probationary period and after shall conform to the relevant sections of the Academic Handbook (2008 edition, pp. 84-86). The design of the long-term contract shall be determined by the school, or may be left by schools to units within schools, but shall be uniform within a single administrative unit. Lecturer and Clinical appointees in the sixth year of their probationary periods shall be considered for reappointment to long-term contracts. Standards for reappointment to long-term contracts and for promotion should be formulated by units; criteria within a unit should be uniform, but flexible enough to accommodate some differences in responsibilities specified in the initial contracts. The steps for review of candidates for reappointment to long-term contracts and promotion shall follow those of review of tenure and promotion. Reappointment of Lecturers to long-term contract and promotion must be based on excellence in teaching and satisfactory service, and should only be granted to colleagues who have demonstrated a commitment to continued professional growth and currency with pedagogical developments in their fields. Reappointment of Clinical faculty to long-term contract and promotion must be based on standards of performance in teaching and service in a clinical setting. Like promotion to tenured status, promotion within the Lecturer and Clinical classifications should principally be a judgment about prospects for future contributions. Research cannot be included as a basic category of evaluation. However, for Lecturers, research in support of teaching should be considered part of the teaching dossier; for Clinical appointees, research in support of teaching and service in a clinical setting should be considered part of the teaching and service dossiers. Other research may be considered as evidence of intellectual engagement in the professional field that is generally indicative of long-term intellectual contributions valuable in classroom settings and to the campus in general. Candidates in the sixth year of the probationary period who do not receive reappointment to long-term contracts will not be eligible for reappointment.

In the event of non-reappointment, faculty in their first year as Lecturer or Senior Lecturer must be given notice not later than February 1. During the second year of service, notice must be given not later than November 15. During the third and subsequent years, at least twelve months notice must be provided.

6. Teaching Load for Lecturer and Clinical Appointments

The maximum teaching load for Lecturers on the Bloomington campus shall be six courses per academic year; the maximum for Clinical faculty shall be the same, calculated according to established methods for determining credit-hour equivalent Clinical faculty effort. In exceptional circumstances, units may petition the Vice Provost for Faculty and Academic Affairs, on a year-by-year basis, for a waiver to allow a seventh course. This campus model is based on a system-wide maximum of four courses per term. On the Bloomington campus, non-tenure-track teaching appointees are expected to be or to become by the time of promotion both outstanding teachers and leaders in pedagogical practice. Lecturers and Clinical appointees are expected to remain current in their pedagogical specialties, to attend and participate in national and international conferences, and to integrate advances in methodologies, materials, and technologies in their classroom teaching. To provide non-tenure-track teaching appointees the opportunity to meet these campus criteria of professional development, and assure that the campus invests in the quality of its non-tenure-track faculty, an adjustment in teaching load maxima is applied to the Bloomington campus. Individual units should regulate teaching loads in view of unit teaching norms, to ensure a reasonable and equitable workload that allows non-tenure-track colleagues the opportunity to achieve teaching excellence and professional development. In certain circumstances, major commitments to research in support of teaching or other faculty development may warrant a reduction from the campus maximum. In addition, in cases where major service duties significantly exceed unit average loads for student advising, curricular administration, and unit committee work, these should be accommodated by additional reduction in teaching loads.

7. Voting Rights of Lecturer and Clinical Appointments

Voting rights for Lecturer and Clinical faculty should be determined by the school, which may assign the decision to the department level. Units are encouraged to provide the broadest voting privileges appropriate and to integrate Lecturer and Clinical faculty in unit deliberations as much as possible. In accordance with university policies, the total voting weight reserved for tenured and tenure-probationary faculty in any unit cannot be less than 60%.

8. Titles for Lecturer and Clinical Appointments

Special circumstances may make it desirable to assign to a Lecturer or Clinical appointee a title different from the appointment classification. Such titles may be given with the approval of the Vice Provost for Faculty and Academic Affairs, who shall compile and maintain a list of approved titles. No title shall alter the appointment classification, and titles should not misrepresent the appointment classification.